1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device and more particularly, to a method for displaying a menu on an On Screen Display device.
2. Background of the Related Art
On Screen Device (OSD) displays information to aid in the operation of the display on a screen. Accordingly, an OSD device may be implemented in a TV receiver and other devices with a screen such as a video cassette recorder and a computer.
In a method for displaying an OSD on a TV receiver, menus are successively displayed on a TV screen according to user selections input through a selecting device such as an operation panel or a remote control. Generally, a main menu is displayed including option items or control functions available on a TV receiver. If a user selects an item from the main menu, sub-menu items are displayed according to the selected item.
Typically, as a sub-menu is displayed, the main menu which had previously been displayed disappears and only the sub-menu items of the selected main menu item are displayed on the screen. Thereafter, when the user selects a menu item from the sub-menu, a sub-menu or a function control window corresponding to the selected sub-menu item can be displayed on the screen. Thus, a user can select and control a function of the TV receiver using the selecting device.
However, in the method of displaying an OSD as described above, the relation between the main menu items and sub-menu items cannot easily be understood at a glance because the main menu disappears when a sub-menu is displayed. Therefore, if a particular function is not displayed by a sub-menu item, a user must search for the function by returning and selecting different menu items, which would be inconvenient to a user as well as a waste of time.
Accordingly, another method in the related art suggests displaying a plurality of main menu items in a first region of the TV screen and displaying sub-menu items of a selected main menu item in a second region of the TV screen. Here, the second region is outside of and different from the first region. As a result, the main menu items and the sub-menu items can simultaneously be displayed in the first and second regions of the screen. Thus, a user can see relations between the main menu items and the sub-menu items, eliminating some of the disadvantages of the unnecessary coming back and forth between the main menu and sub-menus.
However, the above method is a stepwise display method, and would require a third and possibly a fourth separate display regions on the screen if the menu items have more than two levels of sub-menus. Moreover, since a display screen has a limited area as well as limits on legible sizes of characters or graphics for an OSD, displaying more than two separate regions on the screen may be difficult.